Applespider

I took the Victoria line down to Brixton, hopped on a 37 (coming every 6 minutes according to counter on stop) to North Dulwich station (which took slightly longer than usual - about 15 minutes) and walked from there up Court Lane to LL. The traffic was crawling through the village and cars on LL/South Circular were moving about 10ft every other minute if they were lucky. Saw 4 buses southbound - 2 terminating at Dulwich Library, 2 apparently going to Victoria/TCR respectively but not moving much. Didn't see any northbound buses on that stretch at all.

Bear in mind that as part of PAYG the cheap-day return has been abolished so paper ticket return prices have gone up if you'd usually use offpeak. The idea is that the PAYG fare replaces. And annual travelcard holders are penalised since their discount perk doesn't apply to Oyster fares although it does take account of other railcard discounts. So from getting a third off cheap day returns, they have to figure whether full price PAYG is cheaper than 'peak' paper ticket with discount.

John L - while you can stick the OEP on at any point, there is a potential pitfall if you use ungated stations (e.g. Denmark Hill) and forget to find somewhere to touch out. If you had an OEP on for future use and touch in within your zone but don't touch out, the system will deduct the maximum PAYG fare even if you never actually left your zones. ginster - I've written to TFL too. Given than the OEP is free and uniform (regardless of number of zones etc needed), why didn't they just install an extra 'new colour' reader for people to quickly touch and collect one rather than having to queue up with people doing more complicated longer transactions that require choices and cash.

Nero, that's what Ginster is saying - that's what most sane people would expect to happen but it doesn't. If you have no Travelcard on your Oyster and it's entirely PAYG, then you just touch in/out. If you do have a Travelcard and start a journey inside your zone but finish it out of your zone, then you need to get a free OEP before you travel which will be removed from your card when you touch out and used to calculate what you need to pay. It's not clear (to me at least) what happens if you don't have the OEP - whether you won't get out at all or whether it will charge you the full PAYG fare. If you start a journey outside your zone and finish inside, then I don't think you need the OEP from some of the links I've read - others are ambiguous. I can't entirely see why the system is smart enough to do it this way but not the other?!? If you are doing a journey entirely outside your travelcard zones (i.e. zones 3-5 with your 1-2 Travelcard), then you don't need the OEP either - it will work just as a PAYG. It is a nonsense - overly complicated with little benefit since you're still going to have to queue somewhere to get one which defeats the hassle-freeness of Oyster - and it penalises those who are probably the least likely to fare-dodge since they've actually gone to the bother of getting a Travelcard for their regular journey.

Ginster - that's bad news. I'd assumed that it would work like Oyster on Tubes etc and figure out that you just need the extension. So if you did just swipe in and out, it would charge you the full PAYG fare?

I think the majority of us do grin and bear it - but hey, it's human nature to spread our tale of woe and valour in the face of adversity. I gave my staff snow days since it is unusual in London and we're not that geared up for it and I'd be astonished if my street's pavement was ever cleared within 72 hours of a snowfall. But once we're beyond that and the forecast is still for freezing weather so the ice isn't going to clear, then I don't think it's that unreasonable to expect my council to have got to the those streets since I believe 'steep' is a priority (even if it's relatively low on the list). But overall, I think we deal with the aftermaths with fairly good humour. I loved the story today about the 100 people who spent the night in John Lewis in the bed department.

Was very pleasantly surprised to find everything moving this morning - I'm currently sat on a train whizzing up the East Coast mainline which is remarkably scenic with a dusting of snow. And so far (fingers crossed), we're bang on time! I'm guessing that the overnight snow that I was expecting to cause problems fell earlier!

No idea but wanted to let you know that if you have three power outages in a year of more than 6 hours each, you are entitled to compensation. You have to ask for it (it's not automatic) and they sometimes try to fob you off since if it's only once, it has to be for 24 hours (I think). But ?50 is not to be sneezed at...

My extended family live in Scotland - on a steep part of road. At the end of their road (and several others in the vicinity), they have grit/salt bins which are available for the public to use. While not everyone in their road bothers, enough do that it makes walking far less hazardous. I did see one of those bins yesterday near Red Post Hill (while sitting on a P4) but it had a big COSSH sign on it for authorised use only. The roads usually clear fairly quickly - it's the pavements where the ice ends up lingering and causing problems. There are large sections which were like an icerink on Monday from Thursday's snow which I do think is unacceptable - particularly in the hillier parts.

Now I don't feel quite so bad about my trip home. Was meeting a pal in town and got to Victoria about 9.15 to hop on a 185. Waited til nearly 10 before giving up and going down to Brixton. Got a P4 and only really noticed the problems when we hit the South Circular and crawled along it - got home at 11ish. Not ideal since should have been packing for the trip to Scotland... speaking of which, should probably get on with it - might leave a little extra time for the journey to Kings Cross today!

If you've asked them if they can smoke outside and they've said no (understandably I suppose from their point of view since they should be able to do what they like in their own home) then you're going to be reduced to just trying to mask/neutralise the smell. I'd suggest making sure that you have lavender (or cedar etc) sachets hanging amongst clothing or other storage - it will stop moths as well as masking the stale smoke. In living areas, it's going prob going to have to be flowers (lilies have a strong scent), candles, pot pourri and air fresheners. And I expect a monster supply of Febreze for your textiles. I do sympathise entirely with you. I am about to get new downstairs neighbours and I have my fingers tightly crossed that they won't be smokers.

I recently got a Trek FX3 which is a hybrid through my company's cycle to work scheme. It's closer to a road bike than a mountain but keeps the flat handlebars and a more upright posture. It's also pretty light at least until you load on locks and racks. Trek do women's specific design bikes although I ended up with a standard one - it just felt more comfortable when I took them both out for a test ride. I tried Trek, Ridgeback and Specialised out before going for the FX3 and went for the one that felt most natural.

If the bus route was there and running through the night when you moved in, then I've got little sympathy. It's one reason that I didn't put an offer in on an otherwise ideal flat since there was a night bus stop just outside which I reckoned would be noisy. You could drop a line to the bus company and ask them to check their buses are properly maintained but I suspect any bus is going to sound noisy at that time of night when there's so little other background noise aroun.

BA are fairly competitive on short-haul flights - fly into 'central' airports, baggage allowance better, drink on board etc - and if you book ahead of time, pretty much the same price as Easyjet etc if you need to fly at peak times. I usually fly with them or BMI when I go to Scotland or Europe. Longhaul - they don't stand out - unless presumably you are flying First. Cattle-class longhaul isn't great - and the cabin crew on those flights seem far less pleasant than their peers on Virgin, United, Lufthansa, Emirates. The regional flights that they've cut mean that it's almost more hassle to switch at Heathrow than it would be to fly to Amsterdam/Frankfurt/Madrid and take a cheaper flight (fewer taxes etc) if you're not leaving from London. This strike is nuts - their industry has moved on, their pay and conditions far outweigh the current market rate and unlike the Tube where commuters are held over a barrel, there are other options for flyers. Yes, I imagine if I was in their position, I'd be fighting tooth and nail to keep the more cushy deal but there has to be a note of realism which the unions seem to lack. And while I understand their wish to have maximum impact by striking over Christmas, it's not a good long-term strategy for the future. Personally, I stopped booking BA flights in the winter months from Heathrow years ago since they have so many slot issues in bad weather, that it can be hit and miss whether you get to your destination - particularly short haul.

I asked the police for one of these kits last time the topic came up on the Forum (a couple of months ago) and were told that there weren't any more currently available but they were hoping to re-order. There was a piece on the news earlier too about making sure that you don't put the pressies under the tree (which is likely somewhere visible) too early since it's easier for the bad guys to scoop them all up.

I'd throw a vote in for a cycling computer that lets him track how fast/far he's travelled. There are lots of things he could tweak on his bike - e.g. a new saddle, security bolts to stop little shits stealing wheels/saddle etc if he has to leave it outside.

It's Wham's Last Christmas that makes my ears bleed every year.

Well, I'll light a candle for those who do quite like getting different threads when there's news on what's happening. Otherwise, you end up with an old thread constantly reappearing on the front page. While some people would read all the way through before hitting reply, there are quite a few who don't. They read the first posts and then start replying with questions/answers to things that have long since gone by the wayside. As the thread grows - as it would with an issue that's been running and will run for some time - it gets more and more unlikely that people will go back and reread the full thread. The new news gets buried at the bottom and harder to find and comment on. I suspect that there's a difference in what Eileen intends her threads to do and what you expect them to do. Does she see them as more of an information posting rather than something to invite and encourage discussion? Perhaps we need a 'community notices' section that 'information only' posts could get slotted into? I do see your point Huguenot about it being possible that there is more than one community that needs a train service and that someone needs to make the overall decision. But I don't think it's unreasonable that a community shouts about its need - the squeaky wheel gets the oil after all. And there's nothing to stop any other community (or its elected representatives) doing the same. Perhaps we need greater transparency from those making the decision on why they've chosen it (i.e. explaining that greater need and why it outweighs the local one). I am slightly biased in that I do catch a train to/from Victoria most weekdays and evenings so I'm very grateful to Eileen and co for campaigning and keeping us up to date. And no, it's not about house prices for me - it's about the increased time and hassle of interchanging at Clapham Junction (the UK's 2nd worst station) for commuters at peak (from Wandsworth Road/Clapham High St who don't have the option of the fast trains) and for patients at Kings trying to negotiate the stairs between platforms there.

Well done and the costumes looked marvellous this morning. However, looking at the new timetable from 13 December, it appears that we're losing trains between 8-9 at Denmark Hill with the 8.06 and the 8.40 disappearing and the 8.14 being retimed. I'm relieved that the 0829 is staying (as the 0830) since having one train at DH that doesn't stop at PR does make for a less crowded journey. It is annoying to lose the 8.06 and 8.14 though since now there's a fairly big gap if you miss the 0759. I guess those days I have to be in the office for 8.30 meetings just became earlier starts...

Perian is a really useful extension for playing lots of video codecs. I found it more stable than VLC - and it allows you play things directly in Quicktime. I have Office on my Mac, I barely use it despite being an Excel junkie at work. Quickview (pick a file and use the space bar to see a very quick preview) lets you look at Office files if it's just to view them and I find Textedit to be adequate for basic word processing things (i.e. lists, letters etc) - unless you're writing a novel or a thesis, you might not need anything more. iWork, the Apple office stuff, is nice if you're doing more page layout stuff - lots nicer than Word. My Mum who isn't an Excel geek finds the iWork spreadsheet package easy to use - as an Excel geek, I struggle slightly more with it. There are quite a few wordprocessors out there for the Mac - some are more technical - i.e. making it easier to write code rather than essays. Other useful things - Quicksilver (very fast app launching and other task utility) particularly if you prefer the keyboard to the mouse. Omnigraffle is a good Visio alternative. There are a few little graphic apps that people often recommend although since I have PS, I haven't paid much attention - but again depends how much of a poweruser you are. Macs have a pretty good shareware market and things like MacHeist and a few other promo sites quite often offer bundles of useful apps at good prices. To be honest - tell us what you think you might currently have to go back to your PC for and it might be easier to come up with a Mac equivalent. Solitaire XL is a good free solitaire if you really need a fix... :)

28) Knitting It takes hours to make anything that's not newborn size and given how much the wool costs per ball, you'll likely find something cheaper and more impressive-looking in Zara

Hmmm.... I live in College ward. I wonder if that's why I've received an invite from Tessa to a surgery with tea and juice on Saturday - along with my neighbours.

Was it a company called CLC? I know someone who worked for their property sales (the non-timeshare side) and they had property in those places - the Cornwall/Scotland combination is what made me wonder. Yes, they'll give you the trip BUT you will have to sit through a long long conversation about buying a timeshare or a property that you'll own and they'd guarantee you rental income. And you may have to sit through another when/if you actually go. Probably depends on how valuable your time is and how stubborn you are at saying no as to whether it's worth it.

So sorry to hear about this Sylvie. It will affect you for a while most likely - you might be a little more jumpy when you catch something out of the corner of your eye for example. But eventually, it passes although the hard-earned lesson in extra-alertness probably won't. My mugging was 5 years ago and I'm still very conscious of checking my surroundings and if anyone is around when I walk down that road in the dark. > A specialist told us to carry old and cheap bags, > with weak straps (that break when they grab it) > and to keep nothing of value in the bag ( no cash, > cards, wallets etc) but keep that stuff more > secretly elsewhere on your body. That's the kind of specialist that really annoys me. So I can't use a nice handbag and have to wear things with lots of pockets just in case I happen to get mugged. After I was mugged - the specialist told me to avoid walking alone after dark. Great - then I'll tell work I'm only going in between 10 and 3. Yes, it all might be sensible but it's really not that practical. I use a bag that has good strong straps and hold it by the body. Strangely, that was on the advice of the Victim Support bod who seemed to think that if your bag looks relatively flimsy, they're more likely to try grabbing it since they know it will break easier. The mugger only got mine when the straps snapped (I used to hold onto the straps!) and I fell backwards. Although let's face it, if there's a knife involved, we're going to hand it over regardless. I don't disagree with the advice to have some other cash on you (a note tucked somewhere doesn't take up much room) just in case - and I've done it for years. As for alarms, again I think they're a bit of a waste of time unless you're prepared to walk around holding it just right. They sound like any other alarms which the majority of people seem to ignore these days if the car alarms etc round my way are anything to go by. If you're walking somewhere you don't feel that comfortable, keep alert and be prepared to scream. I had several neighbours come out to check I was OK when I was attacked. If I'd screamed when he first approached me rather than just telling him to f-off, I'd probably still have the bag. I'd rather feel a little foolish if the mugger runs off and someone comes out to see what's happening after all.

Well, I guess it depends on how much your time is worth but yes, a ?50 difference is quite a bit more!